Franz Liszt's unpublished Vor hundert Jahren (prel. score)

[tpaloj]

Besides Prometheus choruses, Liszt only composed one other work for the stage: "Vor hundert Jahren", for the Schiller festivals in 1859. The play was written by Friedrich Halm and Liszt composed the music. 2-3 performances were held and the work was favorably received by audiences and press of the time (unusually enough for Liszt). Plans for publication were made, but it never happened.

I reconstructed the score from Liszt's autograph (held at the Library of Paris, available online). It's missing many details such as tempo markings and accidentals, and one whole section of music. This is only a preliminary version - other sources would need to be consulted for an authorative edition but I have no access to those at the moment. I hope this should prove a curious treat as a most rare example of Liszt's orchestral music.

(Liszt repurposed N2 into his Christus Oratorio. N11-12 are based on "Le mal du pays". Melody of N13 saw reuse in his Elizabeth Oratorio. Besides Parzenlied other numbers are arrangements of popular songs.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/809ml8x086rmhhj/Franz%20Liszt%20-%20Vor%20hundert%20Jahren%20%281859%29%20-%20Autograph%20version.pdf?dl=0

EDIT: I uploaded the whole work in midi format here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4_uZ9B7PqI

[eschiss1]

In what sense are his Prometheus choruses works for the stage? He did write an opera Don Sanche, iirc, but those choruses are even less "stage works" than his oratorios...

[tpaloj]

True, with Liszt some of his works blur the line on how they should be classified. Neither is Vor hundert Jahren straightforwardly a melodrama, but that's how it is catalogued.

The very first version of Prometheus Cantata Liszt composed to Johann Herder's "mythological play" Prometheus Unchained and the overture and choruses were performed as part of the play performance. He later revised it with Raff's help to its present form as a symphonic poem, also revising the original choruses to be performed as a separate concert work which has shortened narrative sections from the original (Hungaroton has a recording of this later version of Prometheus Cantata).

[Jonathan]

I might be able to put you in touch with some people who may be able to help with reconstruction of the remainder of the score Monju. I'll send you a personal message later on when I get home from work. Glad to find another Lisztian here!

[tpaloj]

Thank you Jonathan, I really appreciate it. I actually just ordered copies from GSA in Weimar (they have a partitura and orch parts used in its premiere). So the only remaining source I would need to view is in Budapest Liszt Museum collections (partitura which was intended for the copyist); I'm not sure if they do requests for copies for the general public normally.

[Mark Thomas]

The very first version of Prometheus Cantata Liszt composed to Johann Herder's "mythological play" Prometheus Unchained and the overture and choruses were performed as part of the play performance. He later revised it with Raff's help to its present form as a symphonic poem, also revising the original choruses to be performed as a separate concert work which has shortened narrative sections from the original (Hungaroton has a recording of this later version of Prometheus Cantata).

Sorry to be pedantic, but that's not quite correct. As I wrote in an earlier thread: "In 1850 Liszt sketched a composition for chorus and orchestra called Prometheus Unbound which consisted of an Overture, eight Choruses with some linked melodramas and declaimed text - a setting of a poem by Herder. In all just over an hour's music and possibly a further hour's spoken dialogue. Raff had just begun working for Liszt as his amanuensis and Liszt got him to arrange and orchestrate the sketches., which were in a fragmentary state. The piece was performed just the once, after the unveiling of a statue of Herder. In 1855, Liszt completely revised and re-orchestrated the Overture as the Symphonic Poem we now know, retaining some of Raff's material, but discarding much of it. He also rewrote the choruses and both pieces were subsequently published. Listz's reworking of the choruses is available in a Hungaroton recording. Luckily, Raff's manuscript of the original piece, from which Liszt conducted the performance, and which has his scribbled performance notes, survives in Weimar".

The title of the original work was Der Entfesselte Prometheus: Dramatische Scenen von J.G. von Herder [Prometheus Unbound: Dramatic Scenes by J.G. von Herder] and I have a copy of the manuscript. It is not clear either from the score or from reports of the performance whether all of Herder's text was performed, but certainly in the sections which were set to music some of the original text was cut. Herder's work is distinctly un-dramatic and in the 1850 performance it appears to have been declaimed by the actors, quite possibly in static tableaux vivants, interrupted by the melodramas and choruses of the Liszt/Raff setting.

[tpaloj]

I'll gladly take that correction Mark. In a similar vein the VHJ play has little action and few actors - in essence it's a dialogue between two characters Germania and Poetry, with a brief appearance of the "Parzen" Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Scarcely any stage actions are written for the actors, so I'm not sure if its performances were fully acted; or declaimed, as you say, tableaux vivants.

[tpaloj]

After a long pause, I gathered copies of all the sources for this elusive suite of music (Paris autograph, Weimar GSA, Budapest Liszt Museum). From only the autograph source I started with - as expected - I found out the hard way about having made plenty of blunders in its details, looking back at the pdf I put up earlier (I'll chalk it up as a learning experience). However, there's no denying Liszt did not put his finest effort into this work before or after its initial performance. He seemed to have been pressed for time prior to its performance in Nov 1859, and chose not to conduct or attend any of its performances. So most changes in the more detailed scores (namely the Budapest score) are only minute additions incorporated into the work.

In order to honor the copyrights of the libraries mentioned I don't feel like putting up scans of the Weimar GSA or Budapest scores, as much as it might be interesting for some Liszt fans to enjoy viewing the original documents for this most niche of his unsung works on this site. It's such a crime no published edition has been made: it would take no time at all based on the Budapest score which has almost everything detailed and ready for publication - up to formatting, all vocal lines written out etc. If the libraries weren't so strict with copyright, I'd put a clean score up myself.

Besides a missing movement inserted in between the Tell and coda movements, which is a brief and blunt rewrite of parts of Beethoven's 9th symphony for effect, there ain't many substantial differences between the autograph and the final Budapest score. Most changes lie in fine details and are too many to mention.

I'd like to recreate this play and its music in some form or the other, but I'm uncertain on how to go about it. At the moment the midi performance (link above) even with its many embarrassing faults should be the best way to go on about learning how this music might have sounded, when following the score, to be the best option.

At the very least - to concur with critics of Liszt's age - the overture is excellent, and Parzenlied enchanting!